Australian govt 1 step closer to storing phone and internet data for 2yrs

Journalists and some Australian politicians say legislation making it harder for security agencies to store phone and internet records doesn’t go far enough. The government cites security concerns, but opponents say it’s “an attack on press freedom.”

The new laws, which were passed on Thursday through the lower
house and set to be looked at by the senate next week, will now
see security agencies needing to obtain a warrants to look at
journalists’ records, while a lawyer will also have to decide
whether extracting a reporter’s metadata is in the public
interest.

The Australian government says this is necessary for security
purposes and to help fight terrorism. If the legislation is
passed as expected, it will force phone and internet companies to
store records, such as IP and email addresses and telephone
numbers for a period of two years.

Organization chief Paul Murphy said even though lawyers will be
consulted to oversee if data should be released, they will still
be appointed by the government, thus creating a conflict of
interest.

"This is still a process that's going to be conducted in
secret," Murphy added, speaking to the World Today radio
program.

The ‘public interest advocates’, as the lawyers will be known,
will be appointed by the prime minister. Current PM Tony Abbott
is in favor of giving security agencies greater power to store
and record data. However, bizarrely, Abbott tried to compare the
current debate regarding metadata to his own experiences as a
journalist three decades ago.

"When I was a journalist there were no metadata protections
for journalists and if any agency, including the RSPCA [animal
protection] or the local council, had wanted my metadata they
could've just gone and got it on authorization," he said,
adding, “I was perfectly comfortable as a journalist,"
according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

However, Abbott’s reasoning was slammed by Murphy, who said it
was impossible to compare conditions experienced journalists in
such different eras.

"For Tony Abbott to compare his time as a journalist to now
is ludicrous," he told the Australian state broadcaster.
"Agencies are now given access to an unprecedented amount of
data about our lives and work. The volume and type of data now
available was beyond imagining in 1980."

@TurnbullMalcolm does
my MEAA freelancer card get me the professional journalist
protections?

The proposed legislation requiring a warrant and providing a
public interest advocate to decide if stored metadata is in the
public interest will only apply to journalists. Security agencies
and the police will not have to jump over such hurdles to access
the phone or internet records of an ordinary citizen.

The bill has been supported by the Communications Minister
Malcolm Turnbull, who says the new amendments and the
introduction of the public interest advocate will offer a “very
important protection” for journalists.

"There is nothing in the bill, therefore, that should concern
journalists about their right to do their job, their duty to do
their job and to deal confidentially with their sources," he
said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Although publicly Turnbull is advocating the mass storage of
metadata, which can be used by security agencies for mass
surveillance, privately, the minister has been using the internet
app Wicker in order to send messages.

The messaging service, which claims to secure messages with
military-grade encryption, allows messages to self-destruct as
soon as they’ve been sent, thus making it impossible for any data
to be recorded.